As most of you already know, my debut novel – The Tree House – is now out in the world. You can order it from Amazon here. But getting there was a journey of secrets.
For months, I worked very hard to prepare myself, to learn all there was to know about launching a self-published book. But as historians will tell you, no plans survives first contact with the enemy. And my enemy – it turned out – was AmazonKDP. Now before you say to yourself, “oh no, another ugly rant about Amazon” – no, this will not be that. In the best terms, I will recount my confrontation with my own ignorance and inexperience.
I read all of the KDP guides and watched an endless stream of How To videos from a variety of creators. As launch day (Aug. 26) neared, I approached it with a sense of confident anticipation. Despite the caveats from AmazonKDP of a 72-hour review process after upload, self-publishing gurus on YouTube assured it never took longer than 24 hours. On the evening of the 25th, after a long day at work, I sat at my computer filled with nervous energy. My first upload was the hardcover version and it was there that everything fell apart.
After uploading my cover art and interior pages, I previewed the final result only to find a host of errors awaiting me. “Your margins aren’t correct”, the website pointed out (despite following the template culled directly from KDP). No problem – I’m a graphic designer. I can do this. I opened InDesign and reset the margins – and then made a colossal mistake. I also adjusted all of the text boxes to fit the new margins – all 361 pages. An hour and a half of formatting later, I uploaded the new file. “You have text outside the margins”, the website chided. Wait, WHAT?
I’ll give you the short explanation , something that was never included in any tutorial or vlog – if the curve of the letter “f”, or a few pixels of an italicized letter peeks over your text bounding box, the software will find it (all 150+ instances), and your file will be rejected. Another two hours of crazed formatting, starts and stops, trials and errors, finally gave me a file worthy of acceptance. After my mad dash, I was no longer thoroughly pleased with the final formatting of the hardcover, but the hour was late, my deadline loomed, and I craved a reason to celebrate. I published the hardcover version, though soured on the experience, and my own ignorance. The witching hour chimed. Feeling defeated, I resigned myself to uploading the remaining two versions early the next morning.
At 3am, I awoke with an epiphany. I could set the margins of the print versions of my book to the requested dimensions and then center the text boxes WITHOUT changing any formatting, all while keeping those sneaky letters inside those pesky margins, preserve my hard-won original formatting and upload the pages without any errors.
By 10am the next morning, I had published an error-free, properly formatted version of my paperback, as well as my Kindle file. All books now “under review”. Hooray! I backtracked and created a new file for my hardcover interior, following the example of the paperback. But the problem persisted, while under review, I couldn’t make changes to the current hardcover file. I had to wait for the book to go live. Remember that caveat? August 26 came and went with all of my files still “under review”. The 27th offered no relief. I fumed, “twenty-four hour my skinny white ass!” I felt like a dolt. I spent the next two days responding to eager friends and family, looking for my book on Amazon. As I apologized and sent assurances, I tried to buoy myself with the mantra – this was a learning experience.
Late on Monday evening, the 28th, I was rewarded with all three version finally going live. I hurriedly edited my hardcover interior, uploading the reworked file, still anxious at the thought that early purchasers of the hardcover version might receive my ill-formatted first attempt. Breathing a welcome sigh of relief, I celebrated in earnest this time. Lessons learned, and I vowed not to keep my embarrassment or my experiences a secret. So for those aspiring self-publishers out there planning to use AmazonKDP, allow for 72-hours of review prior to book launch, and give your text breathing room inside your page margins. No amount of research and planning can insulate you from the lessons of practical experience.